His eldest son, who was privy to the affair, was strangled at the same time as his father; his other children fled, and Senora Ulloa died of grief." "Poor woman! No wonder the house is deserted.

What a frightful state of things!" And then, feeling that I had said enough, and fearing that I might say more, I turned on my heel, lighted a cigar, and, while I paced to and fro in the _patio_, seriously considered my position, which, as I clearly perceived, was beginning to be rather precarious.
As likely as not the innkeeper would denounce me, and then it would, of course, be very absurd, for I was utterly ignorant, and Zamorra, a Royalist to the bone, must have been equally ignorant that his friend Ulloa had any hand in the rebellion.

The mere fact of carrying a harmless letter of introduction from a well-known loyalist to a friend whom he believed to be still a loyalist, could surely not be construed as an offense.

At any rate it ought not to be.

But when I recalled all I had heard from Morena, and the stories told me but an hour before by Carera, I thought it extremely probable that it would be, and bitterly regretted that I had not mentioned to the latter Ulloa's name.